Microsoft 365 Support: Managed Support from AMVIA

Ollie Hill-Haimes, Sales Director | 6 min read · Mar 2026

Does Microsoft Provide Support for Office 365?

Microsoft's own support is built for platform problems, not your business. It helps with service outages, confirmed product bugs, and provisioning failures — the plumbing of the service itself. It will not add a new starter, rebuild a broken Outlook profile, or tell you which licence a new role needs.

That gap matters. For UK firms with no in-house IT, or a small team stretched thin, the distance between "the service is up" and "our people can actually work" is where managed support earns its keep. Microsoft confirms its support scope is limited to the platform itself (microsoft.com).

What Does Managed Microsoft 365 Support Cover?

Managed Microsoft 365 support covers the full lifecycle of your tenant: first setup or migration, day-to-day user administration, licence management, security hardening, troubleshooting across Exchange and Teams, and backup. It is operational ownership — someone accountable for the environment, not just a help line.

Here is what AMVIA's managed Microsoft 365 service includes in practice.

How Does Setup and Migration Work?

For a first move to Microsoft 365, or a switch from another platform, AMVIA handles the technical build: domain and DNS configuration (MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC), mailbox migration from Google Workspace or a hosted provider, Teams deployment, SharePoint structure, and user provisioning. Our cloud migration process is staged to avoid surprises.

A well-run migration means zero data loss, minimal downtime, and security configured from day one — not retrofitted months later after an incident forces a review. The interplay between Exchange Online, Entra ID, SharePoint, and Teams is documented by Microsoft (learn.microsoft.com) and is exactly where inexperienced migrations go wrong.

How Are Microsoft 365 Licences Managed?

Licences need assigning when staff join, changing when roles change, and removing the day someone leaves. AMVIA manages that lifecycle, including proper offboarding — email redirected, OneDrive preserved, access revoked. We also run regular licence audits to find unused seats and users on the wrong plan tier.

Microsoft's UK list prices are public and a useful baseline for any audit:

Source: microsoft.com/en-gb. Premium is the tier most SMEs should be on, because it bundles the Defender and device-management controls that lighter plans omit.

What Security Configuration Is Included?

AMVIA configures Microsoft 365 security to a sensible baseline for each business: MFA enforcement, conditional access policies, Defender for Office 365, DLP rules, and external-sharing controls. For existing tenants we run a security review first to find and close gaps.

Multi-factor authentication is the single highest-impact control here. The NCSC recommends MFA on all accounts that hold or access business data, because it blocks the overwhelming majority of account-takeover attempts (ncsc.gov.uk). We can layer it correctly with MFA setup for Microsoft 365 so it protects without obstructing.

Who Handles Day-to-Day User Administration?

The routine work — new accounts, password resets, MFA re-registration, group changes, shared mailboxes, distribution lists — is handled by AMVIA's helpdesk as part of the service. These are small jobs individually, but they pile up, and they are precisely what Microsoft's own support will not do.

What About Troubleshooting and Backup?

When Outlook won't connect, Teams won't sign in, a shared mailbox stops receiving mail, or a SharePoint permission locks someone out, AMVIA resolves it fast. Knowing how Exchange Online, Entra ID, SharePoint, and Teams interact is the difference between a five-minute fix and a day lost.

We also provide automated Microsoft 365 backup for Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams — for the recovery scenarios where Microsoft's recycle bin and version history simply aren't enough.

Why Use a Managed Partner Instead of Managing It Yourself?

Self-managing a tenant is possible, but the Admin Centre and Entra ID reward familiarity that most SMEs don't have time to build. The result is predictable: small misconfigurations that sit unnoticed until they cause a breach or a bill.

Common findings in AMVIA's tenant audits include:

• Security defaults switched off with nothing replacing them
• External sharing more permissive than anyone intended
• Inactive accounts left enabled long after staff have left
• Licences assigned to unused accounts for months
• SPF, DKIM, and DMARC not configured, leaving email open to spoofing

These aren't edge cases — they are consistent patterns. A managed arrangement stops them arising in the first place, which is why most clients fold Microsoft 365 into broader managed IT support rather than treating it in isolation. See our full managed IT approach for how the pieces fit.

How Much Does Microsoft 365 Support Cost?

AMVIA's managed IT support — which includes Microsoft 365 management — is priced per user supported. For most UK SMEs, managed IT support including Microsoft 365 management is available from approximately £20-35/user/month (typical UK 2026 market rates), depending on scope and service level. Contact AMVIA for a quote based on your headcount and requirements.

Note that this sits on top of your Microsoft licence cost, not instead of it. The licence buys the software; managed support buys the people who run it properly.